2:20 A Plan for the Olah Chadasha?

This Yom Kippur, the one time I actually divulged in complete (convenient) religious observance, I reached many conclusive realizations. These revelations primarily existed as concepts, drowning amongst the many concerns that chewed away at my state of ease for the last two years. Although it wasn’t till now, on utterance of a few words by another, that they took a big enough bite for me to fully accept: “you don’t come to Israel to make money or to have a ‘career’; you do that all before you get here and then you live.” This concept smacked me around the face at one o’clock in the morning during the holy night, over card games and shesh besh. Words of amazement concerning Aliyah and the unfathomable Anglo Olah were passed over the table with the playing cards among the native Israelis and the English girl. “It is funny, we (Israelis) are all trying to get into the countries you (olim) came from, and you all want to come here.” I had heard this time and time again, yet for once I felt like the fool. The traveling Israeli laid down his winning hand, turned his head up and said in a convincingly serious tone, “my plan is to make money, as much as I can whilst I am young. It isn’t going to be here, so I will go anywhere where it is possible.”

As a new citizen, an olah chadasha, such infamous statements are too often imparted by Israelis. As much as these comments mock my move of Aliyah in the past, for once it made me really think: “What the hell have I been playing at the last few years?” When the Zionistic pursuit and sense of belonging dissipated in the milieu of life, what was I left with?

Once upon a time, I was all too eager to establish a meaningful life, full of meaningful ingredients: charity, NGO, low-paid work and long hours, in which supply-chain management towards my own security was absent. My reality was the eventual minus numerical value in Bank Leumi, freelancing work hanging in the air by a thread, and as time was dripping down to my ankles, dreams that I conjured up many moons ago were fading fast. So, I had to come up with a 'tochnit', a plan, for the next few years. This was a prerequisite, a necessary evil to avoid the transformation of the happy-go-lucky Olah Chadasha into a self-hating Israeli. I couldn’t create this tochnit by myself, as Mr Effy was a huge consideration. So together we created a plan for the next two years, a sort of blueprint to ease my mind and bring me closer to my dreams.

I wrote these paragraphs the day after Yom Kippur, but never posted them as they all seemed too reactionary of a simple 'bad day'. I suppose this is due to my own concept of happiness changing with each day.

Currently I am reading a romance, Suite Francaise, set during the First World War in France. The main characters have to abandon their lives in Paris to seek refuge in villages across France. Their departure from their Parisian homes and what they take with them reflect the values they place in respect to their individual lives; for the writer, his transcripts were the centre of his worthiness, for the wealthy Parisian family, it was ornaments and jewellery, and for the elderly working class couple, it was the protection , health and love of each other. As the history develops in the book, their homes are destroyed and left simply with the items still on their backs. Any time I read about war, I cannot avoid refleting on the situation of the country I live in. A month ago war seemed imminent, and today who knows. I spend so much time considering tomorrow, my future, but hardly consider the true innate meaning of happiness, hidden beneath the layers of pleasure, envy and pressure. Yet all these plans in the end could mean nothing. Homes are destroyed, and the things we spend our lives striving for could disappear in a flash. Yet through this, we are still left with ourselves, alone with our innate desires and dreams. Maybe I will need to revise my tochnit.